


One Fine Day in the Middle of the Afternoon

by Paint_It_Yellow



Category: Layton Kyouju Series | Professor Layton Series
Genre: Fluff, Gen, Layton Big Bang 2018, just fluff that's it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-18
Updated: 2018-08-18
Packaged: 2019-06-29 05:26:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,556
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15722895
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Paint_It_Yellow/pseuds/Paint_It_Yellow
Summary: While on the cruise over to America, Luke finds himself dreadfully bored and the only way to solve boredom is, as everyone knows, to join in with a children's treasure hunt, of course!





	One Fine Day in the Middle of the Afternoon

To say Luke was enjoying the cruise would be both an over and understatement; on one hand, his goodbye with the Professor was still fresh in his mind, but on the other, he’d never been on a cruise before and there was so much to see on the ship that the mere thought of it make him shiver.

“We’ve still got a week,” his dad had said when he’d almost bolted straight off to explore upon first boarding, “you can explore after we get settled.”

Fair, he conceded, that made sense. If he rushed himself then he’d run out of things to do.

That was what he decided on the first day, but by the second day he’d explored most of the ship and by the third he had made himself comfortable on his bed, reading one of the many books he’d brought with him.

“Why don’t you come up and socialise? There are plenty of kids you could make friends with.” His mum had tried to coax him out, but he didn’t really feel in the mood for making friends with them, not right now. It wasn’t like he’d ever see them again, anyway.

After a few minutes, she’d left him alone with a sigh. As the door closed behind her, he looked up before looking back down at his book, recreating his mother’s sigh, no longer able to properly focus on his book. After a few minutes of trying to get back into it he just gave up, grabbing his bookmark and slotting it in before setting the book down at the foot of his bed.

He didn’t feel like socialising, that much was true, but his parents had been egging him on all day and it was- he glanced at the clock- already half eleven. Almost time for lunch. Well, that’s a good enough excuse.

It took him a good few minutes after actually making his decision before he eventually levered himself off and he headed out the door, going off to find his parents- hopefully not sunbathing, he liked his eyes and not being traumatised.

Heading up to the deck, he found them both lounging at one of the tables set up- thank god- and took his place next to them where they gave him a glance and smile of acknowledgement.

“Nice of you to join us,” his dad said goodnaturedly, putting on hold the conversation he and his wife were having before his arrival.

All Luke did was make a noncommittal hum, setting his elbows on the table and resting his head in his hands, legs swinging.

“Are you really that bored?” his mum asked, seemingly amused, tacking on, “Or is this just you being a teenager?”

He looked up at them but didn’t reply. Ever since he’d turned thirteen they hadn’t stopped making references to it. He wasn’t moody, just bored. All the time.

His parents exchanged glances; half amused, half concerned.

“Well,” his dad pondered out loud, “how about, after lunch, you go and join in one of the activities. That’d give you something to do.”

“I hear there’s a treasure hunt on at one, you’d enjoy that one!” his mum added helpfully.

“Treasure hunt?” he asked, voice somewhat hopeful.

“They give you a slip of paper with a hint on it,” his dad supplied, “and you solve the hint to get your next one until you have them all.”

Luke paused and took a moment to think about it. Well. That did sound sorta up his alley, he supposed. Maybe it’d take his mind off the crushing boredom after all, no matter how easy it turned out.

“Well… I’ll think about it.” He said, having already thought about it.

“You do that then,” his mum responded, knowing full well what he’d meant, “Now, why don’t you tell us about that book of yours?”

Her son’s face brightened a bit as he dropped his arms so they were resting on the table, neck now holding his head like it was meant to do as he started an animated ramble about the new book he’d been reading; ‘One Fine Day in the Middle of the Night’ by Christopher Brookmyre.

He was only around halfway through the book despite his reading skills, with the author utilising Scots so often it was as if he had to decipher sentence after sentence just to read it, but he evidently enjoyed it, that much was clear. It was a different kind of challenge from what he was used to.

Their conversation soon bled into lunch, where his enthusiastic one-sided discussion had to come to a close with the amount of food he stuffed into his mouth not allowing for him to speak, lest he face the wrath of his parents.

Come one, Luke found himself directed towards a group of kids who were huddled around two event coordinators; himself soon included in said group. The group consisted of kids from what seemed to him like various age groups, with the oldest group there appearing to be a group of giggling sixteen year olds who seemed to have already picked their team considering they were all towering over the younger ones and huddled in their own exclusive group.

Time ticked on and after around five to ten minutes of awkward standing around on his part, one of the coordinators spoke up.

“So,” the man spoke in a grandiose fashion, “welcome to the scheduled treasure hunt!” He paused as if expecting applause only to be met with silence. He continued as if everything had went to plan. “I’d assume that all of you know how these sort of things work, but just in case you don’t-”

“You’ll be given two minutes to sort yourselves into teams of three or more, after which, you’ll be given a piece of paper with part of a story on it,” the second coordinator interrupted, though it sounded scripted. They held up a piece of paper.

“The sentence on the paper has a clue to lead you to the next piece of paper, once you collect all five, you should find a commonality. Come back here to tell us what you think said common thing is, and whoever gets it by the time the hour is up will get a prize!”

“Oh, and all of the bits of paper are on this deck, so don’t go running off!” the first coordinator added as if it suddenly popped into her mind

That seemed all fine and dandy to Luke, at least it narrowed down the area he’d have to search. Mind you, it was a pretty big deck and was still pretty busy even if a lot of people had filed out after lunch. He’d never really taken part in a treasure hunt, but this seemed interesting enough even if it was just to quell his boredom for an hour. The only problem he really found himself having was that he didn’t know anyone on the ship. Could he persuade his parents to be honorary team members? Maybe.

“Hey! Do you have a team yet?” A girl a fair bit smaller than him interrupted his thoughts with a very evident American accent, prodding his arm to make sure he knew it was her she was talking to.

“Uh,” he replied intelligently, “no?”

“Perfect!” She grinned. “You can be on our team then!”

He didn’t really have the heart to say otherwise, nor did he really have the time as the girl was already speaking again before he could give his consent. He wondered if all Americans were as energetic as this girl, not all too sure he’d be able to keep up in a country of them should that be the case.

“I’m Grace! This,” she looked around before grabbing a kid about her height’s arm and pulling him towards them, “is my brother, Todd. We’re twins!” She shot a wide grin.

Luke nodded at that reveal. “I’m Luke, it’s nice to meet you both.”

“I’m sure it is!” replied Grace, earning a smack off her brother who looked up at him sheepishly.

“Sorry,” Todd whispered once Grace’s attention was drawn to getting the sheet with the first art of the story on it.

“Don’t worry about it, it’s no bother at all,” he replied truthfully enough. The two seemed to be a fair bit younger than him, so he’d have to watch how he spoke especially considering he spent most of his time with people much older than him.

The dramatic coordinator faked a loud cough into his fist before to gain the kid’s attention. “If that’s everybody teamed up then we’ll start in: three… two… one… go!”

Luke stood for a moment, observing the other teams, not that there was really much to observe considering they were mostly just standing around, pouring over the paragraph, though a few had already started to move. He went and looked towards where he’d last seen Grace seeing as Todd was still standing by him, only for her to have seemingly completely disappeared.

“Wha- Where…?” He glanced around, only for Todd to end up tugging him off before he could spot Grace.

“She’ll find us if we stay out of a crowd,” he supplied in lieu of Luke’s confused look, who only nodded his reply.

He had to admit, it was a bit weird not being the more energetic one on the team, not to mention the fact that he was trying oh-so hard to act mature if only to set a good example for the kids he had gotten himself saddled with.

Turned out though, Todd was completely and utterly correct and Luke would’ve thought ‘why did I ever doubt him?’ if he had, indeed, doubted him; he didn’t though, seeing as the twins had quite literally known each other their whole lives, so there was no real reason for doubt.

“Come on you slowpokes! We gotta finish first!”

“We have to figure out the location of the next story part first,” Luke reminded, watching Grace still.

“Yeah, I guess so,” she seemed to visibly wilt at the mention of having to actually do work on a treasure hunt, but Luke elected to just move on. “Let’s see the paper then. The sooner we solve it, the sooner we can get moving again, right?”

“Yeah!”

Grace held out the paper for them all to read.

“‘There once was a bird who flew faster than any other bird, though he never got to show off his talent for the fear of being different and being left out and excluded by his peers’,” Luke muttered under his breath.

“Uh… What?” Todd asked, staring at the paper and then at Luke in complete and utter confusion.

“I thought there was supposed to be a clue in here! It’s just a sentence about some stupid bird!” Grace groaned.

Luke ignored the two in favour of staring at the paper intently.

“Luke? You got any ideas?” Todd asked apprehensively.

“Well,” Luke started, slowly. “It’s probably nothing to do with a bird, for one.”

“How’d you figure that?”

“I just can’t think of anywhere that they could hide bits of paper that have to do with a bird on the ship, honestly.”

“Well, I mean…” Todd trailed off.

“Makes enough sense, I suppose,” Grace (sort of) finished.

“Well, fear and talent aren’t physical things, but neither’s being left out,” Todd murmured. Grace nodded in agreement.

“But things can still look out of place,” Luke suggested. “Maybe it’s a object in a place that doesn’t quite make sense?”

“Oh! Oh!” Grace started jumping, face lighting up in realisation as the two boys looked at her in confusion. “When we were coming over here, I saw a railing and it was a different colour from pretty much every other bannister! That’s out of place!”

She glanced around for a moment before pointing at the bannister she was pointing at. Sure enough, there was a bannister covered in a pink material of some sort in stark contrast to the wooden banisters around it.

“Seems like our best bet,” Luke replied, “I mean, the sentence isn’t specific so I don’t see what else it could be.”

“Then let’s hurry up! Look, there’s already people there!”

Grace grabbed the wrists of her companions, dragging them towards the pink banister with as much strength as her little body contained.

Once there, Luke plucked a bit of paper that was sitting securely in a pouch attached to the pink material.

“Seems you were right,” Luke said before reading the paper over.

“Did you ever doubt me?” Grace asked, putting her hands on her hips and very evidently proud of herself though not getting an answer, so her hands fell back to her sides somewhat dejectedly- not that she stayed that way for long.

“Can you at least read it out to us?” Todd asked and Luke snapped up to them from his thoughts, only then realising that they had no idea what the next part of the story was.

“Oh, uh, sure! Sorry,” he cleared his throat. “‘On the day of the flock's migration, the bird woke up bright and early, ready to fly and hopeful that it would be another peaceful journey, though he found himself doubtful at the layers of thick, grey clouds covering the sun’.”

The three of them stood in silence for a moment, busied by their individual thoughts.

“This one’s pretty clear,” Luke concluded, eyes coming back up from where they were previously focused on the ground.

“It is?” Grace asked, head tilting slightly before she straightened herself out. “I mean, yeah! It sure is, but uh… What’s the answer?”

Todd shot her a dubious look. “That’s a lie and you know it,” he muttered under his breath, arms crossed and eyes promptly rolled.

“Not true! I knew all along! I just want to make sure that Luke has it right first!”

“Yeah right.”

“It’s true!”

“Stop arguing,” Luke interrupted as Todd opened his mouth to reply to the statement. “I’m not saying anyone’s lying, but it’s not very gentlewomanly or gentlemanly of you to lie, nor to argue for that matter.” His hands found themself crossed against his chest and he resisted the urge to lift his chin up, instead maintaining eye level with the two as he did his best impression of the Professor.  
“‘Gentlewomanly’ isn’t a word,” Grace replied after a pause.

“Sure it is,” Luke shrugged.

“Can we move on?” Todd asked, already bored with the conversation.

Luke sighed but decided that Todd was right to want to move on, they were on a time limit after all. “Well, the thing that stands out most this time is the grey clouds that are covering the sun, right?”

The younger kids both nodded.

“So what can we see that’s grey and covers the sky?”

The twins’ faces seemed to light up in sudden realisation as they started to rapidly look around the deck before Todd found himself pointing.

“Found it!”

Luke and Grace followed his gaze and finger, finding themselves staring at the single grey umbrella that was sitting at the small table that the coordinators had taken up shop under, standing out against the blue umbrellas that were stationed at other tables.

“Let’s hurry then,” Luke announced before Todd took off, followed closely by Grace and then Luke soon after.

The two coordinators looked at them expectantly.

“We need the sentence from your umbrella,” Grace said lamely, not really thinking of the need to elaborate- they were the ones that organised the whole thing after all.

The girl cracked a smile, glancing up at the umbrella above her and her partner before standing up and plucking a bit of paper out of what appeared to be a pocket on the inside. She waved the paper down in front of them when Grace snatched it from her rather unceremoniously and starting to tug her companions away without much else being said.

“Uh, thanks,” Luke said a bit awkwardly to the girl who just seemed amused.

“No problem, it was my pleasure,” she said with a smile before Luke turned and let himself get dragged away by Grace.

“Grace!” he started to chastise once she’s halted. “That was rude, you shouldn’t have snatched the paper from the lady, especially not without a ‘thank you’!”  
Grace gave him an odd look.

“Sure, okay, won’t happen again,” she replied with a hand wave, not really finding the problem, “we have the next one already, let’s get on with it!”

Luke grumbled a bit but didn’t oppose. Todd stayed out of it.

“‘Not taking the time to think too harshly about it, the bird and the rest of his flock flew into the sky and up by the clouds, only for him to feel a drop hit his beak, and to hear droplets hitting the water below faster and faster with every passing moment’,” she read out.

“Something to do with water then?” Todd suggested, looking to Luke for confirmation, who nodded, earning him a proud grin from the younger boy.

“It could be-” Luke started thoughtfully but was cut off.

“No! Shh, shush!” Grace interrupted loudly, taking Luke aback. “You’ve done the past three practically all by yourself! Let us do this one!”

Luke frowned. Well, it wasn’t like she was particularly wrong, even if it wasn’t deliberate.

“Alright,” he relented, “you two can do this one, no input from me.”

Luke was sure he caught a ‘finally, my time to shine’ muttered under Grace’s breath, but elected to just raise his brow and otherwise act like he hadn’t heard a thing.

“Well,” Todd started the two off slowly, “it’s something to do with water, so that narrows our search.”

Grace nodded with faux seriousness. “So it could be a glass of water, the pool, or…” She glanced around the deck. “A glass of water or the pool,” she concluded.

“It can’t be a glass of water, that’s stupid.”

“So are you.”

“Anyway,” Todd elected to ignore the invitation for an argument with a roll of his eyes, not wanting to get told off again, “that means it’s got to be the pool, right?”

“Then let’s go and see!” Grace announced, marching her way over to the pool with Todd following. Luke trailed behind, remaining an observer until they decided they wanted him again.

As they approached the pool, they looked at both the outer rim and within it, though Luke honestly doubted that they’d put the next part of the story in the water considering it’s paper and also it’d take a lot of time and effort to get it out in the first place.

Nevertheless, they found a pouch on one of the loungers surrounding it and decided that that was close enough to the pool to count, though they were simultaneously a bit apprehensive in case it was just a pouch that was coincidentally the same as the other pouches containing letters and- yeah, okay, maybe a bit too far fetched.

Todd, somehow, managed to snatch the paper before Grace, making a show by flicking it dramatically and clearing his throat all while Grace pouted and crossed her arms, muttering something under her breath that Luke didn’t catch.

“‘The more they flew, the more soaked they became, ultimately leading the flock to unanimously decide to seek cover until the worst of the rain had passed; splitting themselves into groups to find the shelter and then another to find food.’”

“What kind of birds are these anyway? They don’t seem to act like birds,” Grace asked randomly.

Luke looked over the other bits of paper just to check before replying, “It doesn’t say.”

“Huh…”

“Do birds stop during migration?”

“I mean, I assume so? Wh-”

“Do they stop when it rains too, like this says?”

“Most would, I’d think. I don’t see what this has to do with anything though.”

“Curiosity.”

Luke seemed skeptical but didn’t really say anything, though it was a weird detour. “So, any ideas?”

“Well it’s just more flying, more water and more shelter,” Grace groaned.

“Yeah, and we’ve already had the pool and the umbrella, so it can’t be either of those,” Todd added.

“So it must be the food.”

Luke nodded. That was solid reasoning.

“Do they think we’re stupid?” Asked Grace, crossing her arms in sudden annoyance.

“Don’t be like that, it’s just a bit of harmless fun for people of all ages. They couldn’t have made it too hard or it’d exclude younger people.”

“But I’m young and it’s still way too easy!”

“Well, uh,” Luke scratched the back of his head as he thought of something. “Maybe you’re just smart?”

Grace huffed out a ‘must be’ but didn’t seem entirely placated.

“Look, we only have one more to go before we finish, hold it together til then?” Luke offered which had next to no effect visibly but it wasn’t Luke’s job to deal with grumpy children; that fell to her parents, whoever they were.

“So,” he fixed his posture, “something to do with food, so, maybe the buffet table?”

“But it doesn’t have any food on it anymore,” Todd pointed out.

“But it did at some point,” Luke replied which earned a nod less of agreement and more of ‘I guess’.

“Well, let’s check it out then,” Grace replied, “Might as well.”

And may as well they did, venturing off to the opposite side of the deck and towards a huddle of other kids who were venturing off not moments after arriving.

“Guess that answers that,” Todd muttered as Luke plucked a bit of paper from the stand on the table.

Heading away from the table and into a less busy area, Luke took the chance to read the last part of the story aloud to the kids.

“An hour after landing and after the rain had started to let up, the bird and his flock found themselves rising back into the sky, little by little, until they were soaring up by the clouds once more.”

“Well that gave us absolutely nothing,” Grace replied dully.

Todd nodded. “This has pretty much nothing in it that could direct us… anywhere.”

“Don’t be like that, I’m sure that it’s somewhere!”

“Somewhere,” Grace echoed. “But we don’t know where.”

Luke wondered if this is what he was like with the Professor- Hell, with his parents! God, he hoped not.

“What’s with the sudden lack of enthusiasm?”

The twins shrugged and didn’t seem like they were going to be bothered to explain themselves.

“Well, we’ve only got one more location to go, you can’t just quit now!” Luke tried to enthuse them, but it seemed to fail.

The three fell into an all too awkward silence before Grace started walking off somewhere.

“Where are you going?” Todd asked, following.

“Well, we want that last location, so I’m following these groups who seem to know what they’re doing,” she pointed to the crowd of people at a set of stairs as she walked.

“That’s cheating!” Luke frowned disapprovingly, only to get a handwave in response.

“You make me feel like I’ve aged ten years,” he muttered under his breath.

“Good.”

Luke wondered what he’d done to deserve this. He was good and he held doors open for people and apologised when he did something wrong, he didn’t deserve to babysit some kids like half his age as they were being temperamental.

Despite his protest, he found himself following the two kids as they reached the stairs just behind those they were following, picking up a bit of paper which they read themselves and then handed off to him.

‘A long flight and several more pit stops allowed the bird and his flock to reach the destination safely, a warm place they could hang out as winter rolled into their old home.

THE END’

Luke scrunched up his nose. That seemed like a really weird way to end the whole thing.

“Didn’t they mention that the bird was really fast and had something up with that?” Grace asked, “Why didn’t that come up again?”

“Lazy writing?” Todd offered.

“They probably just didn’t have enough time to fit it in,” Luke amended, secretly also attributing it to lazy- or just plain bad- writing, though he’d like to at least appear to give whoever wrote it the benefit of the doubt.

“How did the that sentence even indicate the stairs anyway?” Todd asked as they started to pour over the entirety of the story in order to get the answer to gain the prize.

“It did say something about going up, maybe that was supposed to be it?” Luke suggested.

“I guess? That’s stupid though,” Grace replied.

“Well don’t complain to me, I didn’t make the game.”

Luke didn’t get a reply to that and honestly? He was glad of that, sure that he wouldn’t have had the care to think of something to the sarcastic reply that awaited.

“There’s only really one common thing throughout them all, since they’re all parts of the same story,” Grace said finally.

“Which is?” Todd prompted.

“The birds,” she finished, “it’s always ‘the bird and his flock’. They always go out of their way to mention the bird.”

Luke paused. “Is that really it? Seems a bit simple, but I suppose…” This is a treasure hunt ‘for all ages’ after all.

“Let’s go and see if we’re right,” Grace said after looking up from the paper in her hands and heading off ahead of the rest of the team as per usual.

Luke just sighed, resigned.

He was sure that several groups must’ve gotten there ahead of them, but as it stood, they were the only ones at the table when they arrived to give their final answer.

“Everything alright?” One of the coordinators asked, seeming expectant.

“Yeah, we think we’ve got the final answer though,” Luke replied.

“Really? Let’s hear it again,” the coordinator leaned forward to listen to whoever was going to speak.

“Birds,” was all Grace said and she didn’t look all that excited, but the coordinator gave a wide and entirely fake grin.

“Well done! Here’s your prizes,” she gave Grace a clap on the shoulder as she leaned down into a bag by her feet, pulling out three tiny soft toys of birds, each about three centimetres tall, and some sweets, distributing the prizes equally between them.

“Hope you enjoyed!”

“We did,” Luke replied before Grace got the chance to, “thank you!” He promptly herded the kids away.

“Well,” he began speaking once more, “it was a… joy working with you, but I should get back, I have plans.”

The two probably didn’t plan it but bid their goodbyes anyway and they all headed off to their parents.

Despite Luke finding himself slumping down at the same table he had done the same thing at not even a whole hour earlier, his parents kindly decided not to comment on it.

“Did you have fun?”

A wonky hum.

“Did you win?”

He set the sweets and the toy on the table.

“I’m guessing it tired you out?” His dad asked with a sympathetic smile, earning a nod.

“Learn anything?” His mum asked curiously, hoping to get some sort of idea of what seemed to be bugging him so much.

“The coordinators can’t write and kids are awful.”

**Author's Note:**

> Hope it wasn't all too bad, had a huge hiccup when writing which caused like half of it to be deleted with like a day to deadline but I tried my best to get it to what it once was. I'm incapable of writing anything that's even slightly angsty so I just decided to write something that was fun and lighthearted instead.
> 
> Find me on Tumblr at future-circuit!


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